Simulation of Hollow Cathode in the Hall Thruster by Particle in Cell (PIC) Method

In this article, the characteristics of the hollow cathode plasma particles in the spt-100 hall effect thruster are investigated by two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation. One of the main and important components of the hall thruster is hollow cathode which plays two important tasks: one part of the electrons that come from the cathode used for anode propellant ionization, and the other part plays the important role of neutralizing the ion beam coming out of the thruster. Therefore, the study of the hollow cathode characteristic is importance. Krypton is used as fuel in this system. The behavior of the potential, the density of electrons and ions and the temperature of particles has been studied. The results show that corresponding the electrons, the ion density also decreases exponentially from the maximum value in the cathode ionization region through outer chamber. Also, analyzing normalized radius regard to electron density shows that the cathode effective area in which the radius electron temperature reaches maximum value is located about 1.5mm from the center line of the hallow cathode.